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Your URLs are resolved down to an IP address by a DNS server. If the URL you request doesn't show up in your DNS server's cache, it will pass the resolution request to the next DNS server up the chain. And so on. So it may take longer for the DNS server to resolve the address than your local timeout permits. Which may be why you get a "not found" message. Typically, if you wait a few minutes (in my experience it's almost always less than 10 minutes for just about any URL in the world) just about all real URLs will be found and resolved for you.

That said, the DNS server cache works pretty much like you'd think -- it keeps the most recently and often requested URLs close at hand and ready to go, while URLs that are less often requested slide down the list. At some point the infrequently requested URLs fall out of the cache. And the cycle starts over again.

If your ISP cares (mine does not) they will monitor the state of the DNS, notice how many URLs drop out of the bottom of the cache every week, and when it reaches some threshold or other they will install more cache memory to bring the DNS server back in line with their desires.

An alternative is to search for a free DNS server outside your ISP. For example, CloudFare just launched a fast and free DNS service. I switched to it right away, and it made my 'net surfing considerably faster and considerably reduced problems like the one that caused you to post to this thread. There's probably alternatives in Europe, but I don't know what they would be.

Re: Outage recovery

Originally Posted by Bruce Watson

Probably not, but it's possible its something your DNS server missed.

Your URLs are resolved down to an IP address by a DNS server. If the URL you request doesn't show up in your DNS server's cache, it will pass the resolution request to the next DNS server up the chain. And so on. So it may take longer for the DNS server to resolve the address than your local timeout permits. Which may be why you get a "not found" message. Typically, if you wait a few minutes (in my experience it's almost always less than 10 minutes for just about any URL in the world) just about all real URLs will be found and resolved for you.

That said, the DNS server cache works pretty much like you'd think -- it keeps the most recently and often requested URLs close at hand and ready to go, while URLs that are less often requested slide down the list. At some point the infrequently requested URLs fall out of the cache. And the cycle starts over again.

If your ISP cares (mine does not) they will monitor the state of the DNS, notice how many URLs drop out of the bottom of the cache every week, and when it reaches some threshold or other they will install more cache memory to bring the DNS server back in line with their desires.

An alternative is to search for a free DNS server outside your ISP. For example, CloudFare just launched a fast and free DNS service. I switched to it right away, and it made my 'net surfing considerably faster and considerably reduced problems like the one that caused you to post to this thread. There's probably alternatives in Europe, but I don't know what they would be.

Or you could just wait a few minutes and try again.

On FireFox now.

Seems the certificate is the issue. Safari won't let me use the site at all, FireFox warns that the certificate is not valid and as such the data sent over the net aren't encrypted.

Yikes.

Gotta figure out how to accept the correct certificate from the site again but this stuff is way above my tech grade